


A Firefighter Lost In Time

by BooksandComicBooks



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Gen, Middle Ages, Rating May Change, Swearing, Time Travel, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2020-05-14 08:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19269586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksandComicBooks/pseuds/BooksandComicBooks
Summary: Christine was called to help at a church fire when she suddenly gets sucked back in time to help a witch from being burned at the stake.





	1. Where am I?

The call came in at three in the afternoon and started a strident warning that made all of us firefighters on duty leap up with practiced instinct and race for our suits. In the two minutes it took to get to our trucks, we already had the address of the fire: 65 Maple street.

The old stone church.

"Shit," I muttered. Murphy, our driver, glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and smirked.

"I thought good catholics don't swear," he said.

"I'm only catholic on holidays," I answered automatically. "And when it comes to churches. You know my mom used to take me there when I was growing up? That place is probably older than this town, and the windows still look gorgeous."

"Don't go getting sentimental now," Roger shouted over the sirens from the back. "We might have to break some of those windows to get the hoses to the right angle."

Police cars were already blocking pedestrians when we got there. We drove right up to the side entrance, where we could see the roof was belching black smoke. I immediatly started to pull out the hoses and didn't have my helmet on yet; that was probably why I heard the screaming.

"Someone is stuck inside," I said into the radio at my shoulder. "I'm going in."

"Roger that," my radio squawked.

I tugged on the heat-protection cap as I ran towards the building, barely getting my helmet clasped tight by the time I got to the courtyard entrance and kicked down the door.

I should have felt disoriented at the sudden tilt-shift in scenery, and I did, a little. The light reflected brightly off the fresh-cut stone, the sounds of emergency vehicles had dissapeared completely. The old tree that used to stand in the middle of the courtyard was gone, replaced by a similar shape that registered to my brain as odd... but I had more important things to worry about. The source of the fire was not inside the church, it seemed to be coming from the pyre...

Pyre. Yes, that was odd.

...And the people standing around the pyre weren't helping the girl who was obviously about to be burned alive.

A person was in distress. My training kicked in.

I raced forward, unhooking my portable fire extinguisher. A couple of people in rough cotton robes stepped out of my way, startled, but a couple more stood in front of the girl on the pyre and held their ground.

"Move," I said, spraying a short burst of halogen foam at them. They moved. The fire was only just beginning to pick up momentum under the girl's feet, luckily, and I made short work of it and the ropes around her. I lifted her up gently.

For a brief moment I was the perfect image of a firefighter: A strong saviour standing over a pile of ash, helpless victim in tow. Then the girl smiled wickedly at the small crowd in front of us and started chanting. I had enough time to notice the robes were those of medieval clergymen; the door I'd just come from was intricately carved oak, not at all like the plain plywood door I'd stepped through at first; and the girl's hands were now glowing. 

"Oh shit," I whispered before dropping her and leaping to the side. I felt stupid the moment I did, because, really, glowing hands? I was afraid of glowing hands? Enough of this roleplaying nonsense, I thought; I have a job to do, and I'm going to finish it. I lept up and grabbed the girl.

"Hey!" she protested, holding her hands out as I slung her over my shoulder. I rushed through the same door I'd come in, sparring only a moment to yell "Get out of here, this whole place is a danger zone!" to the clergy behind me. They must have had trouble understanding me through my mask though; they just stared at me in utter confusion and even a bit of horror.

 When I stepped back through the door, I had expected to see the rest of the guys. We'd only just arrived on the scene and would probably be working a while to put out the fire. Then there were safety inspections to do. The police officers should have been checking witnesses in case this was arson. (It probably wasn't, an old church full of lit candles was the very definition of a fire hazard.) Red and blue lights should have been flashing, yellow warning tape should have been up, people in thick suits should have been rushing everywhere. I should feel a thin haze of evaporating water after it hits the blaze.

I had expected to see all of that when I stepped out. I saw none of that. The parking lot was empty... actually, no, there wasn't any parking lot. No asphalt anywhere. No cars, no emergency vehicles of any kind.

In fact the whole town was gone, replaced by farm animals, small wood buildings, and people all wearing the same kind of linen/cotton clothes as the previous group.

A passing sheep bleated at me.

Disorientation hit like a tidal wave and I staggered slightly.

"Put me down, as your master I order you to…" I shoved the girl to her feet in front of me.

"You're not exactly in a position to be my master," I said. "Actually between the two of us, you're going to have to answer to me. Starting with, what the hell is this?"

"I offered you a proper sacrifice, demon, it's not my fault if you didn't take it," she said imperiously, with the not-quite hesitant air of someone who thought they were in big trouble and trying to hide their fear.

"What sacrifice?" I said, feeling the Earth sway beneath my feet again.

"...The clergy, back there." She gestured vaguely. Thankfully none of them had decided to chase after us. "I figured you'd have a snack after you'd freed me. And then I could escape freely." She glanced around at the people who were doing their best to ignore us and walk _far_ around us. "I thought you _liked_ fire. I thought you were going to roast them."

I swiped my hand across my face. "Look," I started, but I had no idea where to take that sentence. "Look, I'm not... fuck it," I muttered. "Fine, I'll play. You messed up when you tried to summon a demon. I'm a firefighter, not a fire eater, or fire demon, or whatever." I took off my helmet and unzipped my suit. I gestured to myself. "See? Human." I gestured to the town. "Now tell me how to get back."

She stared at me blankly. "...Succubus?" she asked hesitantly.

"What? Oh for..." I felt a headache start to form. "Yes, I'm a woman. What, you assume all female demons are succubi?"

She shrugged sheepishly. "Women fire spirits are typically... I mean..." she trailed off.

I sighed and took a second to make sure my voice would be even when I asked, "How do I get back?"

"You don't," she said, becoming more confident now that she knew she had an edge on me.

I didn't want her confident about that, though. I forced my fists to uncurl, then breathed out slowly. "This isn't where I'm meant to be," I said, desperate to get her to understand. "You must have opened a portal, and I heard your voice call for help, and I came through. Now open the portal again!"

"You're supposed to go back on your own after receiving payment for a conjuring," she said. She shrugged, much less interested now that she saw there would be no consequences. "Can't help you." And with that she scampered off.

"Wait!" I started to run after her, but weighed down in my heavy firefighting clothes I quickly lost her. I leaned against a wall to catch my breath. Here I was, stuck in some old-timey era, surrounded by farmers and, presumably, more witches.

One hell of a day, I thought.


	2. Ok, So Let's Hold On to Sanity...

The little witch had run off without leaving me any kind of information that I could really use. I knew that I wasn't in my usual era; if I were to guess, I'd say it was maybe 400 years ago. That was when the church was built, and also probably the only time people actually burned witches.

I felt my eye twitch and refused to think about that little detail too much.

I decided to tackle my problems one at a time, starting with the most immediate threat; blending in with the locals. Firefighting clothing is not exactly subtle. It's neon yellow, usually smudged with soot, and reeks of sweat and smoke.

The smell, surprisingly, was almost enough to make me seem normal.

I tried not to gag from the stench of a town's worth of bowel movements as I stripped off the heavier pieces of my suit behind a shed. Thankfully everybody who had seen me at the church was too afraid to come near me, so no one was coming to bother me. Probably no one had even properly seen my face. Hopefully no one would see me later and connect me to the escaped witch.

My regular clothes were grey and white sweatpants, almost simple enough to blend in around here. Then I thought about it a little. If I was able to get away from a witch burning, while wearing bright yellow demon-clothes, maybe the people around here were numb to odd things. Maybe I would be fine no matter what I did.

I shook my head. Thoughts like that were proof that the insanity of the situation was driving me insane.

Well, like they say, when in an crazy alternate universe, act like the locals. I stiffled a giggle that felt too much like hysteria.

I closed my eyes just long enough to take a deep breath and slowly let it out. I lifted my hand and made a motion to push my crazy thoughts aside and sat down on my jacket.

This was the list of things I knew:

-Magic was real and witches could summon people straight from the future.

-(Or this was an alternate reality where the laws of physics are thrown out the window.)

Hush, I told my brain. If completely new rules were in place here, I had bigger problems than I could currently handle. Although suddenly finding out that magic was real all along was... I pushed that thought aside as well. One thing at a time.

But that made me wonder... Could I be delusional right now? I went over the impairement test they had us take back at trainning; I could walk a straight line, I could find my nose with my eyes closed, 12 x 12 was 144...

And my brain felt clear; I could recount, in order, which events led up to this moment. The only possibly blank space in my memories would be when I opened that door at first. That weird transition felt too sudden, and it was possible something had happened to cause some sort of blank in my memory for that moment. It didn't feel likely though, because I definetely wasn't dreaming at this point. The stench of stale urine and... _everything_ else in this remote corner of the town... was practically burning my nostrils. That meant that, witches or no, this _was_ an old-timey town.

So,

-Time travel was real.

That wasn't super reassuring, but I decided that if I could go back in time, I could also go forward. There was no evidence of this, but if I wanted to get back home then I had to act like that was an option.

Ok. Next thing.

-People were afraid of me, probably because they thought I was literally a demon. Which was why I wasn't followed.

I quickly looked around me and leaned around the shed's corners to check. Nope, still alone.

So... No one except the witch herself had seen my face. And if she was smart, she was long gone.

Which meant:

-I could simply dump my suit, grab something to cover my tshirt logo and join the town, and...

Action plan, I needed an action plan.

Getting back home was the target of Plan A.

(and Plan B should be to become a powerful sorcerer with my knowledge of future technology,) whispered the crazy part of my brain. But no, would that be so crazy? Then I realised I didn't know how to build so much as a radio from scratch. Did they even have wires in this time period? Yeah, Plan A was the only option here.

And as far as I knew, I would need a witch for that.

My stomach growled. "First," I said, getting to my feet, "food."

As I was about to step out from behind the shed, I thought about what the little witch had said. Succubus. Did I want to be a woman or a man in this world?

I could definitely handle protecting myself, but in terms of being taken seriously in the 1600s... Man. I might be fine, but why risk it. I pulled my ponytail low and hoped the gender-swap movies had been right about people not being able to tell a guy from a girl just by their face.

Then I reached back for my coat and ripped out the dark fleece lining, which would be warm enough to sleep in, and draped it over my shoulders to hide my shape.

Good thing I'd thought of that, or I might have froze tonight.

**

There is always a local bar. Human nature never, ever changes on that one. Luckily it was also busy, which would be how I earned my food.

To use an expression my grandmother liked, I would sing for my supper.

"Gather around," I said, "and toss a coin my way, if you want to hear about the grand adventures of Sir John Snow, the bastard knight." There was at least one way that I could use my knowledge of the future...

I drank half of them under the table that night. Despite my earlier stress, it was the best time I'd had in months.


	3. Billie

The problem with being alive, as any philosophical drunk will tell you, is that life can be wonderful and incredible, right up the moment where you have to pay for it.

And, boy, was I paying for it when I woke up the morning after.

I didn’t open my eyes right away. From the low moans coming from the floor around me, it seemed like a bad thing to do. I tried to roll over and bumped into a bed post. I squinted one eye open and shut it quickly; nope, table leg. Guess I never even left the tavern last night.

Someone was striding around the place with purpose, their shoes knocking against my brain as effectively as a hammer. They paused a few spaces away from me. I heard something shift. “Up,” the woman said insistently. I heard her broom sweep a little before reaching the next person.

I figured she’d reach me eventually and that I might as well get up before she did.

“…Hyurk.”

Maybe take it slow, so my stomach didn’t come up with me…

I let my head fall back to the floor, gently, gently.

I listened as a few people managed to hobble their way out the door, and heard it bang open again as someone else stepped into the room.

“Where’s our story-teller, eh?” the man called cheerfully. A few anguished moans greeted him back. Too loud.

I rolled to face him and gently tugged my eyes open. The light stabbed a little less this time.

The new guy spotted me and rushed over, clunking his shoes with every step. I winced, and tried to push myself to sitting.

Thunk!

And promptly knocked my head on the underside of the table.

“Mother..!” I bit back the string of curse words that threatened to get me marked as a blasphemer.

“Ain’t no mothers to treat ya in this place,” the man said with too much cheer. He held out his hand. I kept holding my head for a few seconds to be sure it wouldn’t split apart, then took the offered hand.

“Name’s Billie,” he said, shaking it. “I was a big fan o’ yours last night. You gon’ be in town for much?”

I hesitated. “Chris,” I said, shaking back. “And yeah, I guess I will be here for a while.”

Billie flashed me a big grin, showing off brittle yellow teeth that could have used a dentist and a regular meeting with toothpaste. “Good t’ hear, good t’ hear. We could use some entertainment ‘round here.” He pulled me to my feet and glanced at the rest of the bar. I leaned on the table that had just tried to kill me.

“I figured,” he said, “That you ain’t got a place t’ stay, an’ that’s why ye’re here, roundin’ up a meal. So I’d like to offer you a deal.”

I stifled a yawn (though I think it was also a groan) and nodded in a way that I hoped would seem friendly.

He leaned in and whispered, “I’ll give you a corner of my house, if you can fit me into some of yer stories.”

I blinked and tried to shift loose strands of hair our of my face. “Sure,” I mumbled. I didn’t see any harm in that.

Billie’s face lit up even more, if that was possible. “Great!” he said, smacking me on the shoulder. I winced at the sound. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “let’s get you out in the fresh air. Maude here don’t really have the best of accommodations fer hangovers.”

The woman with the broom, Maude, glared at him and jerked her head towards the door. Billie bowed at her ostentatiously.

Outside, the sun was just over the rooftops. Probably 8 or 9 in the morning. I tried not to think too much about the coffee I wouldn’t find here.

“That was some party last night,” Billie said. “Ain’t seen the likes of it since, oh, since the first witch burnin’.”

I tripped at his words. “…The first what?” I asked, trying to cover my surprise with a sluggish lilt.

“Well,” he said with a dramatic pause, “See, the cardinal, eh, he shows up one day and says there’s too many witches around. An’ we say, What witches, an’ he says, The witches that been destroying the crops an’ killing the cows an’ stealin’ the children. We said, Ain’t nothing like that here, right, because there wasn’t. Well, a little bit of failed crops now and then, and maybe one cow did turn up at the edge of the woods that was really torn up. Like really torn up, there was blood all over the place, I heard Jonathan, that’s the farmer, I heard Jonathan’s wife just ‘bout threw up her whole stomach when she found it. You know what I m…”

“I – do, yes, thank you,” I interrupted.

“Anyway,” he continued, “We thought it was just wolves. Because since there’s a forest right there, that’s normal. But the cardinal says, No, it’s witches. So he leaves a bunch of priests here, eh, they all live in the church over there,” he pointed back at where I had first arrived in town, “and they’ve been roundin’ up witches and burnin’ em like lamb sacrifices on Easter. The first one, we thought that was it. We thought, No more dead cows! No more missin’ kids! We thought we were purified from the evil, right, so we had a big ol’ party. At Maude’s place, too. Lasted nearly two days. People were tellin’ stories about escapin’ the witche’s clutches, sayin’ how they’d helped the church find her and helped save the town! Well,” Billie leaned in, “Billie didn’t have any stories like that. So that’s what I need you for, story-teller. Yer gon’ make ol’ Billie look like a hero!”

I had stopped walking and took a good look at this man. Graying hair, shaggy beard, a little rough around the edges, and growing twinkle of hope in his eyes that made me think that he hadn’t had as many adventures in his life as he would have liked.

Billie liked stories. All he wanted was to be part of a story that people would listen to.

“Billie,” I said, “I am going to make you sound better than Johnny Cash.”

He grinned at me, not having any idea who that was but still liking my sincere tone. He laughed out loud and smacked me on the back again.

“…So people don’t usually get drunk like that?” I asked.

“Are you kiddin’? I thought I was going to have to scrape you off the floor this mornin’! Maude’s place looked like a graveyard.”

“Well, I still feel like the dead,” I said, still plodding after him to wherever he was going. I stifled another yawn.

“Well, ye should have enough coin left to get yerself some breakfast,” Billie said, “An’ that should perk you up a bit. Then you can spend the day by the well, get some people listenin’ to ye. Maybe tell them a few stories,” he nudged me.

I nodded slowly. Yes, telling stories by the well to get money, but mostly listening to other people. Another thing that doesn’t change over the entire course of human history; we all gossip around a water cooler.

“Sounds like a plan, Billie,” I said with barely repressed excitement. I was feeling more awake already. “Where is it?”

He tilted his head north. “A little ways that way,” he said, “but first I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight.” In a few more steps, he stopped in front of a little mud hut with a slate roof. “Here’s where I live,” he said, stepping through the doorway. The floor inside was mostly rushes, with a nest of fresh straw in one corner.

“That’s my bed,” he said, “and there,” he pointed to an empty corner, “is where you can sleep. Ye’ll need to bring yer own straw, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, briefly wondering what the difference was between this and outside. Bandits, I reminded myself. This man will be protecting me from bandits.

“An’ don’t come back until after ye’ve had supper,” he added. “I ain’t got extra to feed you with.”

Fair enough, I suppose.

Now where does one get hay usually?

“Before I leave, Billie, the hay…?”

He tilted his head east. “Stable’s that way,” he said. “An’ if they charge ye, ye must have seen the fields on your way into town, ye can use that.”

I would be harvesting my own bed. Wait until the boys at the firehouse heard this.

And to think that when I was buying a mattress from the store, I could have just gone organic…


	4. Village Gossip

As it turns out, the well was a great gathering place.

Unfortunately it also meant I had to shout over the bleating goats and oinking pigs sometimes.

"What?"

"I said, **the prince lived happily ever after**."

I tried to remember stories everyone could enjoy. Every once in a while though, I'd have to make up some gossip about the "last town I'd been to", to keep up appearances. "I heard the queen likes to slum it," I said at one point. "She's been sneaking out of the royal castle to sleep with a pig farmer."

"Oh I knew it!" said the old widow Margerite. She walked off with a self-satisfied smile while I tried not to laugh out loud.

The storytelling bit was easy enough. It reminded me of my little niece, before she'd discovered television; as long as I said things that made sense, no matter how simple - or sometimes, awkward - it was, I had an audience. And as people started to accept that I was a harmless traveler instead of a random stranger, they began to talk more openly around me.

"Had you heard about the latest one?" a women in green asked her friend discreetly.

"No, there was another one?" The woman in a blue dress leaned over the well with her bucket.

"Apparently this was another child," the green-dress woman said. "Just yesterday they were going to send her back to the Devil. But I hear she escaped."

"No!" She nearly dropped her full bucket. "But surely they would have let us know if there was one so clearly on the loose?"

"Well that's the problem, isn't it. They didn't want anyone to know she'd escaped." The woman in green leaned forward and whispered, "One of the priests's cousin told me that the little witch had help."

"Help?"

"From a demon, no doubt," the woman's eyes glittered with excitement at the idea. "A big one, covered in fire."

I thought back to my neon-yellow jacket with reflective stripes. That could definitly pass for fire-covered.

"The witches are getting more powerful," she continued in a rush. "That explosion last week is proof. They never used to be so brazen. I think they're the reason we don't see the little street urchins as much lately, either; the witches must be fatenning up on small lost children." I knew that she must be exagerating to scare her friend, who was practically shaking now, but trying to hide it. I guess she wasn't a fan of horror stories. "What, what can we do?" she asked.

"The things we usually do," her friend said with a small roll of her eyes. "The _only_ things we can do. We hang garlic around the window ledges and pray to God to forgive us for all our sins."

The woman in blue relaxed perceptibly. "Yes, that's probably best," she said. "It's a good thing we have so much of it dried already."

The other woman shook her head. "I hate the stuff," she said. "It smells so strong. And I don't even think it really works. I mean why would _garlic_ , of all things, repel a witch?"

"Wasn't that supposed to be vampires?" I asked, tilting my head towards them. They stared at me.

"What?"

"Vampires," I repeated. "They're afraid of garlic."

"Everybody _knows_ that," said the woman in green, although she clearly hadn't before. "Vampires are _like_ witches. They both serve evil. _Of course_ they're afraid of the same things."

I nodded, not wanting to antagonise her. "I suppose I'll have to find some before nightfall then, shouldn't I?"

She huffed. "If you're staying in Billy's hut, then you won't need it." She lugged her two buckets of water onto a sling over her shoulders. "Lord knows he's enough to keep even the devil away."

I watched the two of them leave, not sure how to defend BIlly. It sounded like small-town petty bickering, which meant nothing I said would change their minds anyway. In fact, having a stranger get between them could even make things worse.

I didn't have much time to think about them. They had been among the last visitors for the afternoon, likely since everyone smart was napping in this summer heat. I was all alone, taking a sip from a cup I'd let down, when another woman approached me.

She walked up beside me and pretended to reach for a bucket of water. "You aren't supposed to still be here," she whispered.

The hair on the back of my neck creeped up. "Hm-hem, what?" I said, clearly startled and not in control of this conversation.

"Meet me at sundown, under the birch tree at the edge of town." And with that she walked away as if nothing had happened, leaving me wondering if I'd imagined the brief encounter.

I was baffled. How did she know who I was?

And, almost as urgently, what does a birch tree look like?!


	5. Selene

It took a bit of careful questionning (because, as it turns out, the people around here get defensive when you mention birch,) to find out that birch trees are the ones that have white bark that peels like parchment paper. There were a lot of them around in the town, and even though I'd grown up here, I'd never really asked what they were called. As kids, we used to use strips of it to start campfires.

And apparently, the large one at the edge of town happened to be where a lot of criminals were hanged.

I tried not to think too much about what that could mean for this conversation. After finding it, I sat in the high grass nearby and tilted my head back to think. Anyone walking by, if they saw me, would think I was just watching the clouds.

The only people who knew who I might be were the clergy and the little witch. The clergy hadn't seen my face, though they might be clever enough to put together new stranger in town = new demon. None of them had been women, though, and I'd noticed there weren't any nuns.

So the woman could very easily be, simply, a person that I had not noticed when I was trying to discreetly blend in. There had been moments where I wasn't paying attention; she could have caught a glimpse.

Occam's razor said the simplest answer to my question was the most likely.

Instinct told me to be more wary than that.

Why would she approach me when no one else was around? And she's been full cloak-and-dagger, spy-careful when she'd talked to me. Like she didn't want anyone to see us together.

And she wanted to have this conversation in a place that people actively avoided, that was hidden by the landscape.

For a second a chill swept down my spine at the gruesome possibilities - then my mind went to another possibility, which was that I was a physically fit "man" who possesed an element of mystique because I was a stranger; maybe she had ideas that were disctinctly _not_ nefarious.

I stiffled a giggle. There were worse things than having a go under the stars, but women were unfortunately not my type. And I was pretty sure I wouldn't be hers either, when she figured it out.

It was interesting to think that I could make an attractive man. I snorted out loud, enjoying the thought that I could tell the boys back home that I had as much pull as them. At least.

I plucked at grass strands, trying to bring my thoughts back to serious matters. I wouldn't have much time to think. The evening came on slowly, the stars twinkling much earlier than I was used to. No light polution, I thought to myself. They were pretty in the setting sun. 

Setting sun. I smacked my cheek. Focus. I needed to see her before she saw me, so I could get an idea of what she wanted from me. I crept further into the grass, just beyond the tree, where I could hide as long as I kept still.

I figured that I wouldn't have to talk to her only on her terms.

That thought changed as soon as she showed up by walking through the arch under a low-hanging branch.

She hadn't been on the other side of the arch a moment ago.

A witch. Of course. She could probably smell the magic on me.

"Come out, would-be demon," she said. In the dim light I couldn't read her eyes, and her neutral tone gave me goosebumps. I knew I was completely out of my depth.

I thought quickly and decided that I didn't know enough to act any way except honest. At least, I could still go for disarming and genuine.

"So there are still some witches around the area then," I said as I stepped out. She glared at me sharply before looking around. "Don't say that out loud," she hissed.

"Sorry," I said, meaning it. "I didn't get any instructions before being cut loose."

"...That can't be right," she said. She peered at me closely. I stared back, trying not to blink. "No, you aren't a demon. You aren't even a minor spirit." She lifted a candle - no, a floating light in her palm - and poked at my shoulder. "But you were summoned."

"Yeah. I think she made a mistake in her spell..."

"Trinity did, yes, she would..." she trailed off, looking at me pensively. "Where is she now?"

"Gone," I shrugged. "She left me at the church."

 "...Gone."

"Yes."

"And why aren't you with her?"

I hesitated, but realised that honesty was still my best option. "She ran away from me."

She shook her head in disbelief. "She..." Her hands came up slowly, restrained claws that meant to rip their victim apart. "Mother preserve us, _she ran away from her summoned slave?!"_

I twitched at the term, but stood my ground once I realised that she was more mad at Trinity than at me. Her ranting continued.

"That little rat goes and gets caught, _again_ , putting us all in danger, and you say she's _vanished!?_ With a **_Godess-knows-what_** ," she gestured to me, "left to _roam!?_ Oh I am going to wring her _tiny little neck_..."

She stopped and took a breath. Her head snapped up at me. "You. Obviously you're a warrior of some kind, I'm hiring you to get her back, _and keep her under a close guard this time_."

I stepped back unconsciously. "I'm not quite that kind of warrior."

"Then I'm hiring you to seek her out," she hissed, "until _I can do something about all this_. Mother knows what kind of forces have been unleashed by bringing you here. What are you, anyway?" She tilted her head like a snake, staring at me intently.

"A firefighter," I said, fighting the impulse to step back again. "Just a normal human, who um, who isn't from around here."

"I can tell that much," she said. "But why you?" She leaned in closer, and I leaned back. "Why didn't you get sent back as soon as you'd saved her? Because you _did_ save her, didn't you?"

"Um," I swallowed. "Yes."

Her face split into a cheschire grin, happy to have something finally go her way. "Then you will find her, and save her again," she said.

I wasn't very convinced that I could. The kids around here seemed to be very good at hiding, if the local rumours were anything to go by. This witch didn't like my hesitation.

She raised her hands, which now glowed blue like Trinity's had. The blue light wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides.

"Hear me, spirit," she intoned grandly. Her voice echoed in my head. "You will obey my every command until the completion of your given task. You will _find_ the girl, and you will bring her to me. You will come again to this tree, every evening, and call my name. Selene. And you will have the child, or you will tell me why you don't." She leaned right into my face. "And do not breathe a word of this meeting to anyone, not even during one of your stories. Or there will be consequences."

She turned and walked back through the tree arch. Slowly, the light dimmed and released me. I fell to the ground, panting hard. I hugged my arms tight to my chest.

It was one thing to see little glowing lights, but to actually _feel_ the power of magic... I struggled to breathe, not because I was still being squeezed but because I felt my world-view shatter just a little bit more.

After a few minutes of taking calming breaths, I managed to pull myself up. I couldn't stay here in the pitch black night; Billy's hut would be a warmer place to ponder all of this. I grabbed a few fistfulls of grass and went back to the village.


	6. Let the Little Children Lead You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story so far has been a first draft attempt, and I'm going to keep it that way because, as much as I try to stick to traditional methods, this is the best way for me to keep track of what I'm writting.   
> So, apologies for further plot holes and discrepancies. I'm just having fun with it.

That night, since I found it hard to sleep, I actually used my brain instead of letting myself fall into hangover territory again.

I had a hunch that the kids weren't disapearing from the streets because they were being eaten by witches. As scary as Selene had been, she didn't strike me as the cannibal type. If there _was_ such a thing. Though I was fully aware that I was probably just allowing myself to _hope_ that the local witches weren't as dangerous as everyone thought.

So I thought. Kids used to run around in the streets, untethered by adults. Now they weren't as much.

Protective parents?

Not all of those kids would have parents, if the witch-hunts were as frequent as Billy said. And the villagers had used the term "urchin"; they might have meant literally, orphans.

Some of those kids were probably disappearing _because_ of the witch-hunts, if the church was willing to go after someone as young as Trinity. But the women a the well hadn't thought the kids were disappearing because they were dying at the stake. And as exaggerated as some of the stories I'd heard yesterday were, they all knew who was going up on the stake. This was a small village after all.

Wary children, then? Careful children.

Children aren't careful. Not unless they are very aware that they have something valuable to keep secret.

A thought knocked at the back of my brain. This was a small village.

Everyone knew each other.

Knew who was on the stake.

...No one seemed to know about Trinity. Even the older witch hadn't known that she had run off.

I sat bolt upright, and remembered at the last second to keep quiet so I wouldn't wake Billy. I glanced over at him, but he was still an unmoving lump in the darkness.

There must be a reason, I thought as I chewed a corner of my lip.

Maybe it was simply that no one paid any attention to the kids around here and had let them fall to the fire.

That didn't make sense with basic human nature, though. This town wasn't starving; there wasn't a deep lack of any resource, as far as I noticed, that would make them selfish enough to stop caring about the kids.

So. Options:

Maybe the witches were eating children, even though, according to Billy, they had never really harmed anyone before.

Maybe the kids were being hoarded indoors by their wary parents.

Maybe the kids were being careful themselves, either because they were hiding something or because they were afraid of getting killed.

Occam's razor, I thought. The simple and more obvious scenarios are often the right ones. And, if I were being honest, they were also the easiest ones to find answers to. So. The simplest solution involved a scenario where not all parents would have such control over their children that they would completely disappear from the streets. Some of the kids would be quiet because they were scared, but they wouldn't be traumatized enough to keep quiet forever, not all of them. Many of them would be quiet because they had a secret.

I was willing to bet that secret somehow involved Trinity, considering how easily she seemed to hide herself away.

***

I figured the best way to ge tthe kids' attention would be to gather the village around for another story-telling session. This time, I would focus on the more Disney-like versions of fairy tales that I remembered. Keep it kid-friendly and happy.

 While I was talking, I tried to weave in subtle references to the situation. The parents weren't paying attention enough to notice, but I saw glints of recognition in a few young eyes.They glanced between themselves, not knowing that they weren't discreet enough for me. When the story was over, they hung around just long enough to grab their slower buddies, then took off towards the hills that bordered the back of the town. I passed around a hat to collect coins from the audience and when I could sneak away discreetly, I followed them.

When I was growing up, a few friends and I used to enjoy sneaking around in the tunnels that ran under the hills. One opening at the base of the largest hill was big and obvious, at least in my time; it was a popular barbecue and camping spot for local families. But the smaller system of caves, a bit higher up, was only big enough for a group of teenagers to tell ghost stories in the dark.

As I jogged through the underbrush, pausing only now and then when the trail I was used to taking turned out to not exist yet, I felt an old memory jog in my brain; Vincent, his eyebrows lifted in a knowing smirk; Maggie, glancing around with the flashlight; and Paul, crossing his arms like he was bored but looking the most interested out of all of us as Vincent told the story of the ghost that haunted the very cave we were in.

He'd pointed to stains in the walls, rusty discolorations that could have been iron in the rock. "The blood of her captives," he'd said ominously, holding the flashlight under his face.

"Why would a ghost kill people?" Maggie had asked, not convinced in the slightest.

"Because this ghost wasn't just any ghost," Vincent had said, waggling his fingers. "She had a grudge against the people in town. She would demand sacrifices from them, and they had to obey or else she would cast wicked curses on them!"

"Why," Paul said, shiverring, "why are we here, then?"

"Oh, she doesn't want sacrifices _anymore_ ," Vincent said like it was obvious. "Not unless you upset her."

Paul had looked ready to burst out of the tunnel, so I asked, wanting to keep the story going, "Who was she?"

Vincent turned to me dramatically. "No one knows," he said.

I stuck out my tongue. "Your story sucks."

"But!" Vincent passed the flashlight beam over the cave walls. "But..."

"Looking for something?" Maggie snarked.

"Ah-ha!" Vincent pointed. "She left markings in her home!" We turned to see faded lines that made pictures on the walls.

"Those were made by cavemen," Maggie said.

"No," Vincent pouted, "these were made by the ghost of a witch who..."

"You never said she was a witch!" Maggie exclaimed. "Chrissie's right, you suck at story-telling."

"Maybe if you let me finish," he said, leaning his words toward her. She made a zipping motion over her mouth. He nodded, satisfied. "The ghost of the witch was angry that people didn't like witches, so she dragged people in here, and slaughtered them!"

Maggie sighed before turning to us. "Who else is bored and wants to get to making out?"

I smiled at the memory. Vincent and Maggie were married at this point, with a snarky kid of their own.

But the important detail from that day were the drawings. We'd only been able to make out a couple of animals, and a blocky structure that  I now recognised as the town as it looked _now._ They had been drawn around this time, probably by a person small enough to not feel claustrophobic insuch a tight space, and who would leave rumours of a witch who demanded sacrifices.

I was deeply hopping that last part wasn't true.


	7. The Wicked Witch on the Hill

The trip had taken me out past lunch-time; I'd paused under a tree for a short rest, fishing a chunk of bread and cheese donated by a lovely spectator out of my bag. My hand brushed a cylinder of some kind at the bottom, and I remembered that I still had some objects from the future with me. Notably, my little pocket mirror and a tube of cherry lip balm.

And now that I was standing a few feet from the mouth of the cave, staring at a tree half-hanging onto a rock, I suddenly wondered _how_ I could get any further. Trinity hadn't trusted me the first time we had met, why wouldn't she run as soon as she saw me again?

I dug into my bag and pulled out the lip balm, shiny mirror, and the leftover bread. When in doubt, bribes almost always work on children.

I took a steadying breath and convinced myself that this run-in with magic wouldn't be as painful as the last one. Then I stepped forward.

"Who comes before the Cave of Azallea?" a voice intoned.

I gotta give her credit, that is _slightly_ intimidating.

"I've come with bread," I replied, making my voice as small and unthreatening as possibly. Childlike. I leaned forward and held out my offerrings.

A small hand reached out of the cave's opening to snatch at it, but I was quicker.

Straightening, I held Trinity tightly in a bear hug. "You and I are going to talk now," I said.

"Let... me... GO!" she squirmed, but I knew to hold her hands pinned to her sides. They glowed ominously, but nothing happened.

"You're in big trouble, you know," I told her. "Some witch came by after you left and wants to skin you alive for getting caught. And now that I think about it, _I_ want to skin you alive. But," I grabbed her wrists and locked her in place, "I'm not going to get mad. You made a mistake because you were trying to save your life. I get it. But now you have to fix it."

"No!"

"Don't you dare try to bite me, mmph," she threw her head back at mine and almost came loose. "I'm bigger than you, how are you even..." I grunted and threw her to the ground, locking her arms behind her, and sat on her. I panted. "You just couldn't do this the easy way, could you."

"Get... OFF!"

"No."

She muttered a few curses under her breath, and her hands glowed stronger... then faded. She deflated slightly at that.

"Guess you're not as powerful as you think, are you?" I leaned forward. "Can we talk _now_?"

**

"Hehehe, you mean you actually talked to Selena?" Trinity asked, giggling. "And she _didn't_ rip out your entrails?"

"I think she wanted to," I said. "I like my entrails inside my body though."

Trinity giggled more. She was much easier to handle after I gave her the cherry lip balm. I had to keep her from eating it outright, though.

She began spreading some of it on her bread. "I don't know what I did, exactly," she said. "Things were getting a bit heated." She grinned. "I said the first summoning spell I could think of that involved fire. I think it involved reaching out to the closest helper..." at this, she trailed off in Latin looking pensive "...Ignis punator, I think I used. Does that fit you?"

"I don't speak Latin."

She rolled her eyes. "Fire fighter, literally."

"Well that is literally accurate, as it's my official title."

"You have a title?" She leaned forward, interested. "Lady Firefighter?"

I smiled wanly. "I mean I have heard that term before, but..."

"Hell is soooo cool!" she exclaimed. "I want to be lady something. Lady Trinity. No that's just _me_! I want to be... Lady Witch! No, Lady... Spellcaster. That sounds cooler."

"Sure, sure," I said. "Lady Spellcaster certainly sounds like someone who knows what she's doing."

Trinity grinned proudly and took a bite of her cherry bread. "Mmm," she said, "Tastes like fruity veal fat."

I cringed. Guess who never wants to use lip balm again...

"How does spellcasting work, anyway? You chant in Latin, you make your hands all glowy..."

"I don't know, it just works," said Trinity. She smacked her lips. "You gotta be born a witch. We have a special blood."

"So you couldn't teach me."

She cackled. That's a no.

I sighed. "Why don't I take you back to Selena?" I asked. "We could explain what happened, she might know how to reverse spells."

"No. Selena is terrible. I've seen her suck someone's blood out until death, and that was just because they looked at her funny. She's going to outright kill me, and you, oh wait," she sniffed around me. "You're spelled to be her slave!" She got up to run off again.

"Sit down," I said, exasperated. "I'm not going to forcefully drag you back. I don't think it stuck, anyway."

She stopped, mostly because I'd grabbed her again. "...You really mean that," she said. "What happened?"

"She layered her spell over yours, only yours isn't really there anymore, is it?"

Slowly, Trinity grinned. "...No, it isn't. And that gives me a terribly good idea."

I groaned. "Don't say we're going to fake..."

"...We're going to fake you capturing me!"

"Why, though? We could both just escape and just find someone who's a little nicer."

"I like this town," she said. "The kids here treat me like some kind of benevolent goddess. Plus, I like my cave," she gestured to the small nest of cloth in the corner proudly. "It's mine."

I couldn't fault her for that. "Alright then," I said, "What do we do with this trick?"

"What?"

"A plan, we need a plan."

"Oh, yeah, sounds good..."


	8. And Then I Died

"Selena? I've come with the girl!"

It was sundown, and we were standing under the same tree birch tree as before. I'd left a message for Selena at the town well, and thankfully here she was.

"Thankfully" is a terrible word for this situation, though.

Selena grinned, showing all her teeth. "You call ME, little firefighter?" she shouted from across the field. "I think you forget your place, servant!"

I held Trinity in front of me and tried not to tremble. "You wanted her back," I said, "Well I found her. But!" I said as Selena took a step forward. I held my fireax to Trinity's throat. "I want a trade. You get this girl, I get a wish from you."

Selena cocked her head, the grin never leaving her face. "Did she tell you that would work? Stupid, naive little firefighter. And you, Trinity," she raised her head, "Coming back here with some half-baked plan to get me to submit. I have told you, child, you must learn discipline. You and your little band of urchins run rampant, with no regard for the consequences that your actions have. Now, firefighter," she quirked her hand and I felt a pull. "Bring me the child."

I resisted. Or at least I _tried_ to resist, but my body seemed to float towards her. Trinity dug her heels into the ground but to no effect.

We made a show of struggling and held off until the very. Last. Second. Then Trinity lunged forward and stabbed her.

"K-eurk," Selena sputtered, clutching her bleeding abdomen. She dropped to her knees.

"Bet you didn't see _that_ coming!" Trinity said, kicking her to the ground.

"Um, one second," I said, "We were supposed to poison her for leverage, not..." I gestured.

Trinity ignored me, but Selena stared up at me and coughed a tiny spot of blood. It dribbled down her chin as she stared in horror through half-lidded eyes. "What have you don... keh, hkehh," she whispered, coughing.

"Oh, shut up," Trinity said, plunging the knife into Selena's throat. Blood sprayed over her, covering Tanya like a red dress. Some of it splashed onto my shirt.

I stared dumbly. "What is... what..." I tried to ask. I also tried not to, because I already knew.

An undisciplined young witch with no one to hold her back anymore.

With the power to pull people straight out of time.

She'd be unstoppable. And she wasn't afraid to kill.

"Oh..." I whispered.

Trinity turned to me, tossing the knife around like a toy. "You should have eaten those priests and be done with it."

And then she killed me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There *is* a continuation for this, so fear not! Even when something ends, it's not always The End.


	9. This Is NOT How I Identify

I woke up surrounded by a dark sky.

That's how it feels, really, when you lay on your back in an open field and there's no lights around for miles, so the stars shine that much brighter and make the black sky that much more... void-like. You can get a sense of vertigo, like you're staring _down_ into a beautiful pit, just barely clinging to the surface of this tiny planet. Just barely keeping yourself from floating around, like a soul without a body.

It lasted for barely a few moments. Then I had the impulse to lift my hand up and touch the void, and that was when I started feeling my heartbeat again.

It was not a happy heartbeat.

"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck..." I muttered, twisting my hand in front of my face. It was smaller than it should be. The fingers were longer. And the wrist was bordered in something lacy. I think it was actual delicate lace.

Then I heard my voice. Higher, and with a slightly more Christina-Aguilera tone.

"What the fuuuuuuuck…"

I tried to get up and found that half of my body was paralysed. So I started wiggling around, and, upon looking over myself in the dim starlight, I started to make out certain details that...

I can't even say it.

I was... I was in Selena's body.

I glanced around as best I could. I rolled over from trying to turn my upper body, and rolled right onto something firm and not-quite warm.

And that was when I recognised _my_ body.

"FUUUUU..."

"Oh for Goddess' sake," a voice in my head said. "Would you _calm down_?"

"Easy for _YOU_ to say!" I screeched in my head. I felt her wince back. "How is.. what..." I patted my face and chest, trying to find a pulse-point. Trying to feel a small puff of breath. Nothing.

"Am I _DEAD_!?"

"Well there was hardly enough life force to sustain us both, was there?" she said nonchalantly. I could tell she was grappling to take over the parts of her body that I had control over. I yanked my right arm back towards my body.

"Let me try, at least," I said, already getting into the position for CPR. "Just follow what I do with your other arm, ok?"

She paused. "Listen, fire fighter..."

"Chris," I said instinctively.

"Chris," she said. "The forces of magic, just like any other force of nature, must follow a balance."

I started pounding on my chest, and falling over because I could only support half of my body. "You could help, instead of just sitting there," I said.

She didn't say anything. Just let me uselessly try to pump blood through a cold body. I kept at it for a few minutes before slumping over and crying.

She tried to reassure me, awkwardly. "At least you're still, you know, alive. You could be just a vague remnant of a soul, drifting around my mind."

I sniffed. "...What do you mean?" I asked slowly.

"Well, I was dying, you were dying, I thought as long as I could get one of us to live..."

"You stole my life from me?" I said, barely aware that I had said it. I could see the idea of it in her head.

"Life force," she corrected.

"Life," I said.

I felt her mentally roll her eyes. "If it makes you happier to be right."

"And I wasn't supposed to be alive after you did this... transfusion?" I asked. "Are _all_ witches in this town terrible at casting spells?"

"Say it in your mind," she hissed. "We can't go around using the W-word."

"Honestly with this level of incompetence, it's no wonder you keep getting killed," I said (mentally).

" _Watch it_."

"No!" I thought loudly. "You drag me out to a time before running water, throw me into a situation that could, and actually _did_ , get me killed, and then you push me around like I'm some kind of tool. Screw you!" I made to stand up, tripped on the leg she controlled still, then hopped to the nearby tree for support.

"We need to work together if we're to stop Trinity," she said, trying and failing to get back control of the right side of her body.

"I really don't know if that's my  problem anymore," I said. "Maybe I could just stay like this for a while."

She reached around and slapped our face. "Stop _sulking_ ," she hissed. "I don't care that you're going through a crisis. The whole _town_ will be going through a crisis if we can't get ourselves together. And if our town falls now, then you won't have a place to live in your own time."

"Oh, so _now_ you understand why I'm not a demon."

"Magic is not so simple as the people in your time think it is," she said. "There's many ways that something can be accomplished. And starting to think that's why Trinity is the way she is."

Selena tilted our body weight and started hopping towards the arch in the tree trunk. "We can work on working together later. First I'll need some things from my cabin."


	10. It's a Kind of Magic

Selena's cabin was full of shelves, which were themselves full of every kind of jar imaginable. Most of them were covered in dust, which thankfully covered their contents. From the thoughts that were going through Selena's head, they were full of horrible things.

She humphed at my disgust. "They're all perfectly natural. Most of this is normal kitchen ingredients."

"I'm pretty sure they violate some health code."

"Is everyone in your time a wimp?" she asked before going to sit at her table. We swayed on the way down. "Could you  _try_ to be moderately graceful?" she growled at me.

"You're tiny," I muttered. "Not my fault you don't have as far down to go when you sit."

She ignored me and started looking through a rack of herbs. She poured some into a bowl and started to grind them together.

"Lunch?" I said sarcastically.

"Protection herbs, to get keep her off our scent. That child is a bloodhound for causing trouble, and we don't want to be anywhere near her for a while." Selena pourred the herbs into a tiny vial that she hung around our neck. "Now!" she said officially, " we are going to do some investigating."

"If you need me to remind you who the murderer is..." I started, but she shushed me. 

" _Obviously_ , this child shouldn't be as strong as she is.  _Obviously,_ this child came from somewhere very unholy if she can drag someone from out of their time. And if she is what I think she is, this is going to be a  _pain in_ _the ass_ to fix. So, thank you for bringing it to my attention," Selena said as she got up to reach for moldy jars.

"That's what my goal was," I muttered, "being a pain. What  _is_ Trinity supposed to be, if not a witch? A half-demon spawned during an unholy ceremony?" I joked, thinking of old horror movies.

"Not exactly," she said in a way that didn't reassure me at all.

"Not exactly..."

"She was conceived by the locals," Selena said as she opened a jar. My nose stung from the smell. 

"Pfwew." I tried to blink the tears out of my eyes. "I need more of an explanation that that."

"Trinity isn't human."

"Wonderful. She's a demon then?"

Selena scoffed. "There's more than demons and humans and witches,  _obviously._ "

I looked to the sky and tried to calm down. Every converstion with this woman was infuriating, but it wasn't entirely her fault. I needed to aclimate and start thinking rationally about this. "Right, right, so Trinity is..."

"A conjured, created spirit. We call them Tulpas. They take form from the thoughts and wishes of a group of people." Selena was looking through her books now.

"So... The people around here want a witchy little girl..." I trailed off as I realised. "She's been protecting the kids."

"Precisely where my thoughts were going too," said Selena. She had opened a book to a chapter of conjured spirits. "Care to guess how many children were tied to the stake since the clergy decided to take up arms against witches?" Her bitter tone told me the answer. 

"How many were w..."

"That shouldn't matter," she spat. "Witches or no, these were innocents. And the children were smart to create a thing that could take the brunt of the attack for them. I can't begrudge them that." She flipped to another page. "However, they acted without any real planning, and we're going to be paying the price. Trinity may have helped hold off the God-fearing arsonists, but every success only makes them believe in her more. The fact that she was able to bring you here is proof that she's much stronger than she needs to be, in fact much stronger than local magics can support for much longer."

"Magic is finite?" I asked, knowing that wasn't the right question but feeling like I needed to digest the rest of the information first.

"Of course magic is finite," Selena said. She slammed her book shut. "It's why we witches are never in very big groups. We would be stealing spells from our sisters' mouths. When we die, the magic we held all our lives returns to the Earth and sustains the next generation." She twirled in place and made me focus on the jars of stuff. "Now!" She clapped our hands together and smiled maniacally. "This is where we start getting our revenge."

"I was reading that book too," I said, trying to pull her back. She shrugged my arm back under her control. "It said the only way to kill her was to destroy the people beliving in her."

"Never take a book literally, my dear little firefighter," Selena purred as she started pulling out ingredients. "There's more than one way to destroy a believer."


End file.
